PokeVS launches its new Pokémon Go scanner to help find creatures

Pokémon Go’s popularity has spawned a cottage industry. One of them is PokeVS, which has created a scanner for Pokémon Go that tells players where they can find hidden creatures in the landscape.

It’s not clear how Niantic Labs, creator of Pokémon Go, will react to the latest scanner. In the past, the company has had to change the way it did things because it found that third-party applications were slowing down the experience for Pokémon Go players. But it still appears there are lots of scanners listed on places such as Reddit.

PokeVS said it offers unlimited scanning for a fee of $9.99 per month, while it also offers micro transaction fees on a per location basis. The scans run 24 hours a day, telling you what’s around you within a few miles of your location.

When a scan is set up in a particular area, anyone viewing the map can view the spawned Pokémon. This allows friends to split the cost of scanning a neighborhood, or city. PokeVS has also created a counter of all Pokémon found using its scanner, stat tracker.

And PokeVS has also started selling ad space on the map itself in an effort to reduce the cost of global scanning.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.